


The Pool of Aggrysus

by kihadu



Category: Nightrunner Series - Lynn Flewelling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/pseuds/kihadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec and Seregil are asked to find a missing necklace</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pool of Aggrysus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Diana Williams (dkwilliams)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dkwilliams/gifts).



Alec looked up when Seregil came in, Alec over by the window braiding together pieces of sinew. It was going to be his third attempt making his own bow. It was going poorly, though in a pinch it might do and that was the goal. He could not imagine that he would always have his bow ready at his side, and Seregil’s teachings aside some things were easier to buy than to steal.

“Any jobs?”

“A few,” Seregil said, tossing a jumble of papers down onto his desk, already strewn with things. Alec did not mind the cluttered mess; in any case, it was not his own, and his own corner of the room was kept comfortably neat, but Seregil seemed as bothered by it as unwilling to tidy it up.

Alec stood up and came over to investigate himself. Seregil flopped down on the bed. Their bed now, and here in the city that was a concept Alec wasn’t yet used to. “Be a dear and undress me. I’m exhausted.”

Ignoring him, Alec rifled through the papers, looking for seals and familiar handwriting more than words. “This one,” he said, holding up one that had been tied with a ribbon still half-stuck to the card with wax. “It looks interesting.”

Seregil eyed the pink ribbon. “A lost necklace? Hardly.”

“But it is Count Deryful’s hand, not the Lady.”

“And he has mislocated a necklace?” Seregil sat up. “Curious.”

“I thought he was faithful to her.”

“So did I,” Seregil said, standing and waving his hand for the card. “A trifling matter for one such as myself - ourselves, my apologies,” he added, though Alec had not made a face at the exclusion. Alec handed the paper over, remaining close to begin unbuttoning Seregil’s shirt. It was not the request that made him do it. The closeness was pleasant, and there was something intimate in willingly serving. Seregil held the card aloft over Alec’s shoulder to reread it.

“He has lost it in the woods,” Seregil read. “What was he doing in the woods, of all things?” From what little they knew of the Count, the man preferred indoors, keeping horses only for carriages and even then he had recently been talking of selling them, and hiring when he needed.

“Taking his lady for a ride," Alec suggested, and Seregil chuckled. “Oh, shut up. I didn’t mean it like that.” In retaliation, Alec struggled with the knot at Seregil’s throat, pretending to unwittingly tighten it uncomfortably before digging his nails in to undo it.

“Fancy a trip out of town?”

“Anything to forget the twenty baths you’ve made me have this week.” Seregil dropped the card onto the floor beside the bed and let Alec push his coat off his shoulders and down his arms.

“We can use this, I think,” Seregil mused. “Find the necklace and hold it over him, a deal for a deal. What do we need?” he asked. “Money is always nice. A bigger bed, a nicer apartment? A new horse for you, perhaps, or a new knife for myself.” He stuck his tongue in his cheek, thinking, letting his limbs become malleable while Alec removed his undershirt. “Gossip would do better. What secrets might Deryful know? Tell me, tali, what secrets do you desire? I could buy some piece of gossip for you.”

Knowing that Seregil, tired as he was, would not remember that in order to rest he would have to quiet down, Alec kissed him full on the mouth. “Do your own boots,” he said, stepping away to ready himself for sleep.

 

“Ow! Ow-ow ow! Stop!” called Seregil. Alec, ploughing on through the underbrush ahead of Seregil, paused with some irritation.

“What?” he asked, trying to sound less grumpy than he felt. Seregil’s claim that it would be a trifling matter had not taken into consideration the fact that a necklace was small, Count Deryful’s sketch of the thing was abysmal at best, and the forest was very large. Added, it was a warm day, but to protect against the trees they were both in long-sleeved shirts.

“Got a stone in my boot,” Seregil muttered in response, hopping to a rock covered more in slime than moss. “Come here?” Leaning one gloved hand heavily on Alec’s shoulder he used his teeth to pull off the other so he could undo the laces of his boot. “We should tell the Count that we found the necklace only in time to watch crows snatch it up out of the dirt. Teach him to go fooling around on his wife if that thing shows up in some bird’s nest.”

“We should have determined more exactly where he went.” The Count’s letter had said little, only that he had travelled to the Pool of Aggrysus and sometime between arriving there and returning to the city, the necklace disappeared. Alec was wondering if the destination had been a lie: the Pool of Aggrysus appeared to be hidden beyond a tremendous mess of undergrowth that even he was struggling to slide through.

He put his arm around Seregil’s waist to steady him as the other man struggled to yank off his boot.

“We should have taken horses,” Seregil groused.

“And then you would be battling the trees,” said Alec. “Our path isn’t suited.”

“Donkeys, then.”

“If you had that money to spare you’d spare it on something else.”

“Mules.”

“You think a mule would be less rare than a donkey?”

“An antelope!” cried Seregil, triumphantly pulling off his boot.

“This side of Nimra?” Alec laughed despite himself.

“Blast - there it is!” He pulled out the tiny rock and held it aloft.

“A tiny thing to cause so much pain,” Alec said, dryly.

“We should have left the Count hunting his own damn pendant. I cannot imagine he walked here.”

“Nor I,” Alec admitted, though he had been the one dragging Seregil onwards for the past twenty minutes. “Perhaps he left it in a drawer. Or his wife found it, and took it thinking it to be her own.”

“What kind of woman does not know how many necklaces she has?”

“You forget how many gloves you have,” Alex pointed out. “As much as you might like what you have you can still forget.”

Seregil frowned, struggling to tug on his boot without unbalancing and putting his socked foot onto the ground. “I should have left you in the woods. Too smart for your own good, that’s what you are these days.”

“Better late than never,” suggested Alec. “I’d be more than happy to go home.”

“And do some light thievery no doubt.” Alec smiled sweetly, but said nothing. “Damn you. Damn the Count.”

“Home, or onward?”

“Onward. We’ve come this far, and I’m not bruising my feet for nothing.”

 

The Pool of Aggrysus was located outside a cave. The cave looked overgrown and miserable, for which they both were glad. In any other situation they might have been egging each other on to go exploring.

“At least the grass is nice,” Seregil said, flopping down even as Alec cried, “No! Don’t!”

“What?”

“There’s ants. You just lay on ant nest,” Alec said. Seregil bounded upright.

“This entire thing is awful,” he declared, once he had done brushing himself off, “and I think we should never invite him to parties.”

“I do like his wife, though.”

“She is rather fun.”

“And he’s a cheater to boot,” Alec added. “She’d do better to be rid of him.” They were both aware that they were only guessing that Count Deryful was cheating; it could be as simple as her not knowing or being willing to contact their secret identity, and so he had written the letter. Still, their guesses tended to more accurate than not, and given the hike to the Pool neither of them were inclined to give the Count the benefit of the doubt.

“See any sight of a necklace?”

“No,” said Alec. “If you were bringing your secret lover here, where might you sit?”

Seregil looked about to make another disparaging comment, but he was spy enough that he took a moment to consider the question seriously. “If I were bringing you here - let’s face it, why would I bring anyone else here?”

“Flatterer,” Alec interjected. Seregil winked.

“I would coax you to strip off your clothes and go swimming.”

“There was a warm day, about a week ago,” Alec agreed. The pool did look inviting, a sandy bottom, small groups of silver fish darting through the water to reach the shaded shelter of lilies.

“A day not unlike this one.”

Alec lifted an eyebrow as Seregil sidled closer. “Are you attempting to talk me out of my pants?”

“I am only suggesting that perhaps the Count and his secret lover deigned to bare their skin -”

“You’ve been reading too much poetry,” said Alec. “If you want me naked you only have to ask.”

“I just don’t like having to open my eyes under water,” Seregil complained, nearly whining like some high-end rent boy. “It hurts, and I worry about fish in my eyes.”

“It’s alright,” Alec said. His hands were already on the buttons of his collar. “I’ll look in the pool.”

Seregil gave him a wide grin. “And I’ll look at you. Wonderful!”

Alec waved him away from assisting with his clothes. “Go sit on that rock over there. Maybe the necklace fell into a crack.”

“Or she placed it down! Excellent idea.”

“It could well be a male,” Alec said, shirt off and tossed onto Seregil’s retreating shoulder. “We don’t know.”

“He’s never once flirted with me.”

“And flirting with you is the only indication that a person might like men.”

“I suppose you never flirted with me.” Seregil sat primly on the rock, but he did do his job and cast a proper eye over the surrounds in case there was a flash of gold. “Do you like men?”

“I haven’t bothered to check yet.” With that, Alec pulled his trousers down in one move and stepped neatly out of them. He piled them on top of his boots. Displaying his typical unabashed joy in staring, Seregil looked him over with an intent gaze. It took him a moment to catch up.

“Check? How?”

“The Street of Lights is still there,” Alec said. He carelessly pushed his hair up off his forehead, hoping that Seregil could not see how his heart was pounding. He wasn’t used to this, for all that it had been going on for a while. He trusted that Seregil wanted him, but he didn’t quiet believe it. So often he felt like a child pretending to play some game he didn’t even know the name of. “Perhaps I could test the variety they have on offer.”

Something passed over Seregil’s face. “Variety?”

“Someone with curly hair. Short hair, perhaps.” Alec was up to his knees in the water. It was nice on his feet after the hot leather of his shoes. “A thicker waist, larger shoulders,” he was teasing, and he could see that Seregil was not taking it well, although he was trying to feign nonchalance.

“Is that what you truly want?”

“Some of those pictures did need three,” Alec admitted. He had been wondering, but idly. It was a curious thought had at the tail-end of half a dozen others. There was no urgency to figuring out the particulars of three people together.

“You want-” Seregil could only blink. Once, twice, and then he swallowed. “Truly?”

“I don’t know,” Alec said. “Perhaps. But I have you.”

“And that is enough?”

“Tali,” Alex sighed, a smile on his lips, the sigh a breath of joy rather than exasperation. “It is not a question of enough. I love you.”

“And I you.”

They stared at each other, eyes locked, lost together in knowing how much they meant to the other, how precious it was that they had found each other. Alec broke away first, uncomfortable for the intensity of the gaze and his part in starting it. “I should probably start hunting, now.”

“I will be here,” Seregil grinned. “Watching.”

Alec made a rude gesture, and dove under the water. 


End file.
